Trait Machiavellianism and Agentic Career Success: A Multi-Measure, Multi-Criteria, Multi-Source Analysis

Abstract

The Five-Factor Machiavellianism Inventory (FFMI) was specifically designed to rectify validity concerns with traditional measures of Machiavellianism. In this study with 550 career targets and 1,127 knowledgeable informants at work from a broad range of occupations and organizations we tested whether the FFMI outperforms traditional measures of Machiavellianism in the prediction of agentic career success using a multifaceted range of proximal and distal career outcomes. Apparent sincerity is a social skill that enables individuals to instill trust and confidence while disguising other intentions. We tested whether apparent sincerity partially mediates the relation of the FFMI with career success. We controlled for gender, human capital, and kind of employment. The results show that the FFMI was a better predictor of agentic career success than traditional Machiavellianism scales. Apparent sincerity partially mediated the FFMI-career success relation. Agency directly and indirectly predicted career success. Planfulness indirectly predicted career success. Antagonism neither directly nor indirectly predicted career success. These results support that the FFMI covers with its dimensions the full range of trait Machiavellianism with reference to criterion validity.

Ethics statement

As we followed standard procedures in applied psychological research (e.g., informed consent and adherence to the Data Protection Guidelines of the European Union) and did not touch on sensitive topics nor used body invasive procedures or drugs, the procedure and the materials of the study needed no special approval by the ethics committee of the Institute for Psychology of the University of Bonn.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank I. Gramoll, F. Köhler, K. Langen, P. Marienhagen, K. Münzel, F. Nießler, A. Popova, J. Schendel, N. Siebertz, K. Uhlig, J. von Jakubowski, and S. Wahlicht for their help in the data collection process.

Data availability statement

The data from the study are available for researchers upon reasonable request from the first author.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.